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L.T. Hanlon

Category: Smith-Corona Silent-Super

Typewriter model.

Happy Holidays

December 26, 2020 L.T. Hanlon2 Comments

I also sent this to One Typed Page, a blog.

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They rubbered me the right way!

June 14, 2019 L.T. Hanlon6 Comments

Photo of a Smith-Corona Silent-Super portable typewriter. It is painted in what the manufacturercalled desert sand and on the left front bears a decal indicating that at some point in its life the typewriter was sold or serviced by Windward Office Machines, a company on the island of Oahu, Hawaii.
Thanks to J.J. Short Associates Inc., my Smith-Corona Silent-Super manufactured in 1954 is ready to keep making good impressions on readers for another 65 years.

This photo of a typewritten page contains the following text. Friday, June 14, 2019. Chicago, USA. Smith-Corona Silent-Super, 1954, Pica. Free enterprise in action. Even when a vintage typewriter Is In near—perfect condition there’s always  one item that's likely to be in bad shape: the rubber platen. Old platen coatings become hard and contribute to noisy typing and poor letter impressions. Typing with a second sheet or even a plastic piece behind your main paper can be partial and  temporary solutions. But a permanent fix requires replacing the rubber. Some folks have managed to do the job themselves using rubber hose  cut to fit and then heat-shrunk. But that’s way beyond my technical capabilities, so I was dee-lited to learn that J. J. Short Associates Inc., a family—owned company Just outside Rochester, N.Y., has risen to the occasion and is now replacing rubber for typewriter platens, feed rollers, and other components. The company completed my platen’s recoating  quickly and at a reasonable price. This is a great example of free enterprise!

Need your platen stripped and re-rubberized?
J.J. Short Associates Inc. is ready to do the job.

 

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Paper, rubber, imperfection

June 7, 2019 L.T. Hanlon8 Comments

 

Photo of a box of Southworth Businessd 100 Percent Cotton Paper
I really like this Southport 100% Cotton Business Paper. It’s less than $20 on Amazon.

 

Photo of a typewritten page with the following text. Chicago, Friday, June 7, 2019. Just a mixed bag of updates this time. Paper -- I've found a nice  paper with a surface compatible with both typewriters  and hand-writing tools such as pencils, ballpoints, gel points,  and more. Another fun plus is that the paper, Southport, Business 100% Cotton, feels sort of like money after you’ve crumpled  it multiple times. Rubber stamps -- Lately, I’ve enjoyed personalizing my correspondence with rubber stamps. I especially like the Chicago flag stamp I’ve used here. Non-perfection -- A fear of being less than perfect has hamstrung my freelance writing efforts but I’ve put that behind me and am pounding away once more. Nothing can be per fect -- not even this mechanical wonder I 'm typing on right now. Its unique character registration would, in fact, ensure my quick apprehension were I to use this typewriter to create a ransom note!

 

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Infected by E-6 color sensibilities

May 24, 2019May 24, 2019 L.T. HanlonLeave a comment

Friday, May 24, 2019. Chicago, USA. Smith-Corona Silent-Super Elite 1954. Ektachrome and espionage. I’ve always wondered why back in the early to mid—1970s I made the switch from Kodachrome to Ektachrome. This affected my 35mm slides shot with my Pentax Spotmatic as well as 3—D images created with my Wirgin (Edixa) stereo camera. Switching was a big mistake, of course, since Kodachrome offered not only a truer representation of reality but also a much more archival medium. National Geographic photographers favored Kodachrome, switching only to Ektachrome when a faster emulsion was necessary. But why specifically did I switch? While watching Three Days of the Condor tonight, the reason finally hit me: movies. With a few exceptions like 1973’s Westworld, nearly every movie I saw in the ’70s looked blue. That's what infected me. It wasn’t until the early 1980s that I realized the error of my ways and returned to Kodachrome. As for the 1975 film Three Days of the Condor, it holds up exceptionally well and is clearly the spiritual mentor of many recent movies, including the Jason Bourne franchise. It also serves as a wonderful glimpse into world of 1975. Flared jeans, the Bell System, newfangled things like eyewitness news, big—ass land yachts, and even the 2—year—o1d Twin Towers all co—star in this Manhattan spy drama.

 

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I love a rainy night

May 23, 2019May 23, 2019 L.T. HanlonLeave a comment

Photo of a typewritten page with the following text. Thursday, May 23, 2019. Chicago, USA. Smith—Corona Silent-Super (pica). I’m not here for the destruction. I’ve posted several times before about how I enjoy monitoring the live video feeds of stormchasers. But I ought to make it clear why I watch this stuff. Like the majority of folks who are fans of NASCAR, I have no desire to see the tragedy. Far from it. I like seeing how stormchasers track bad weather, decide where to go, and how they coordinate with other chasers and with the media. Last night, one of the best feeds showed some chasers stop at a Sinclair service station in Oklahoma and get gas and food. Or food and then gas, as we'd joke in junior high. As the chasers tended to their vehicle, one pointed out the green concrete Dino out front. I hoped someone would go ride Sinclair's mascot, but nobody did. This venerable Smith—Corona I’m typing on probably has seen its share of storms. It still bears the business decal of the outfit that sold it: Windward Office of Kaneohe, Hawaii a Honolulu suburb.

 

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Kingdom of the Spiders

May 22, 2019May 22, 2019 L.T. HanlonLeave a comment

Silhouette photo of the scary-looking but harmless bridge spider.
L. sclopetarius silhouetted against a highrise window. (Photo by L.T. Hanlon)

Photo is of a typewritten page with the following text. Wednesday, May 22, 2019. Chicago, USA. Smith-Corona Silent-Super. Welcome, my 8-legged friends! As May draws to a close and summer readies its reign, my 54th floor windows once again play host to Larinioides sclopetarius, the common bridge spider that spins webs across Chicago's skyline. These spiders look impressively large as the season grinds on, but they're harmless to humans. In their native habitats, they live on barren cliffs. As man made his mark upon the land, L. sclopetarius took advantage of bridges and other metallic spans and then found comfortable niches in highrise buildings. Bridge spiders mostly keep to themselves. Just once in the two years I’ve been a cliff-dweller has one ventured inside my sky terrace. I used a broom to persuade it to return to the Kingdom of the Spiders. When I read more about these spiders and their ways, however, I felt bad about having done so. The specimen that sought refuge In my apartment was a small one and the species is known to be cannibalistic if sources of its usual prey are unavailable. Most of the time prey is plentiful, so much so that L. sclopetarius can be choosy diners. Often, most of the victims in its webs are still alive, sort of like how lobsters and crabs greet customers of seafood restaurants. Hey, everybody enjoys fresh food.

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Ixnay on that bench-seat slide

May 15, 2019May 15, 2019 L.T. Hanlon4 Comments

The hood slide (see above) is another story entirely. It’s A-OK!TC_051519_1000

 

 

 

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‘Mondo Trasho’ auteur at the typewriter

May 15, 2019May 15, 2019 L.T. HanlonLeave a comment

A young John Waters sits at a typewriter in what appears to be a table in a home's kitchen.
John Waters as a youth in Baltimore. Photo from This Is Not Porn.

This photo of a typewritten page contains the following text. Wednesday, May 15, 2019. Chicago, USA. Is that typewriter bigger than Divine's butt? In articles about celebrities and famous writers’ favorite typewriters, the profiles are always of people who can charitably be described as annoyingly normal. That’s why I like this photo of young John Waters. I learned only recently that he and Divine attended high school together. So what is the future director of Mondo Trasho composing here? Waters probably is working on some dull composition for English class. But I like to imagine he’s compiling a list  of assholes who bullied him and Divine — with plans for adulterating their food with  fresh dogshit. Note: This typecast has not been edited.

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Serif or sans serif?

May 14, 2019May 14, 2019 L.T. Hanlon7 Comments

Photo is of a typewritten page with the following text, which varies between serif and sans serif typefaces. Tuesday, May 14, 2019. Chicago, USA. To serif or not to serif. I've always preferred using a serif typeface for body text; the legs and feet just always seemed to make it easier to read. At newspapers where I worked, the house style often dictated serif for body type and sans serif for captions. The exception was so-called advertorial, aka advertising designed to look like real news. This usually employed sans serif for body type as a way to make it appear different from regular news content. In my experience, however, serif or sans serif never made that big a difference when it came to editorial vs. advertorial because most newspaper readers have been — and continue to be — unaware of the difference. But I have warmed to the quasi-sans typeface used in this Hermes 3000 typewriter from 1968. Its typeface, Techno Pica, feels like a serif face sometimes and sometimes like a pure sans serif. Only a few letters sport serifs, others don't — but I 'm unable to figure why. The photo shows an example of Techno Pica typeface, which is mostly san serif except for a handful of exceptions. I can sort of see why the serifs. You don't want a lowrcase ell to be mistaken for a sans serif numeral one. So in Techno Pica, both are unique. Tis a mystery.

 

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Nicotine notes from Mom

May 12, 2019May 12, 2019 L.T. Hanlon2 Comments

This is a photo of a typewritten page that contains the following test. Sunday, May 12, 2019 . Chicago, USA. Canon Typestar 5. Notes from mother. What sorts of notes do mothers send out their  children today? When I was a child, those notes usually consisted of permission slips, notes excusing kids from  school due to an illness, shopping lists, and the  note that allowed children to buy cigarettes. That's right. At one time not so long ago, many grocers and druggists would sell cigarettes to kids as long as junior presented the cashier with a signed note from a parent authorizing the purchase. (

 

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